Digital Collections: Preservation and Problems

Abstract

In educational and research institutions, the quantity of digital content created is huge, and libraries at these institutions have a liability to bring this digital material under guardian control in order to manage and preserve it over time. These all have presented challenges and problems to libraries because of the need for special equipment to display items in these formats, obsolescence of this equipment and/or the formats, and the need to preserve the information contained on sometimes fragile storage media. Now the Libraries are working with the DSpace, Greenstone etc (opensource digital repository platform) to explore the problem of capturing research and teaching material in any digital format and preserving it over time. It is a daunting task with few confirmed models, requiring new technology, policies, procedures, core staff competencies, and cost models Problems are not ending; now burning problem is what we should be selected for Preservation for future as this task is not trouble-free. Today the problem of harvesting material on the web and in information centres for preservation and search is a major concern.